


No Frozen Ground

by scioscribe



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Flirting, Grave Robbers, M/M, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 01:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16295675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe
Summary: Hickey keeps Goodsir supplied with bodies.





	No Frozen Ground

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skazka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/gifts).



> Happy Halloween!
> 
> Between this and [resurrection for fun and profit](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1051172), I'm hoping that body-snatching AUs will become a whole Hickey/Goodsir subgenre.

He makes his rounds nice and regular but he’ll admit to having favorites. Goodsir’s one. He’s always liked curls and kindness, hasn’t he, pulling on the first and leveraging the second.

Mr. Goodsir keeps his rooms so pin-neat it’s a pleasure to linger in them even when he's not been invited to. The doctors and anatomists are in thrall to men like him, and Hickey—that’s what he’s calling himself at the moment—doesn’t take as much advantage as he could. For now, he likes the work. He was always in the habit of being up nights anyway. A little bit of midnight skullduggery and then the treat of seeing Mr. Goodsir’s toothsome self all colored up with firelight and shadows? What’s not to like, so long as he keeps in mind that he’s destined for better things?

He trades tonight’s carcass for the standard price and goes so far as to help Mr. Goodsir haul it over to his table. Hickey settles the burden down and runs one finger along the wood grain.

“You don’t eat off this as well, do you?”

“No. I used to—I did clean it, after all—but then summer came. The wood expands, releases the odors trapped inside. I can’t forget it.”

He’s not worked this job through all the seasons yet, only this autumn, and it’s been a cool autumn. Perhaps by summer he’ll be gone. Perhaps even by winter, since he doesn’t fancy breaking his back forcing a shovel into frozen earth.

“It must get lonely, then,” he says. “No guests. Banished to the corner to eat off your knees. You should come out with me sometime, Mr. Goodsir, and make an evening of it.” He uses his smile. He doesn’t think Mr. Goodsir’s immune to it—few men who spend so much time with the departed could be, he’s sure, because at least Hickey is alive. He thrums with life, runs hot with it.

And Mr. Goodsir could afford to offend him, he supposes—Hickey has his competitors—but he won’t want to. He’s as good as his name, as good as his face. He’s a man who’s thought through all the little contradictions in his work—a respectable trade that lives on the shoulders of dark deeds done by the despised. The work of so fine a mind as his compared to the labor of Hickey’s hands. No, Mr. Goodsir will not refuse him, not so long as he’s careful to only ask the right questions.

Hickey keeps his nails clean, too: no grave dirt to be seen there. He sees Mr. Goodsir’s gaze linger now on his hands and he wonders if that’s what the man is thinking of or if there’s something else, some desire already formed. He would like that. Prefer it. He can live off satisfaction, but he can't warm his bed with it. It can't make him laugh or stop him being lonely.

“Thank you, Mr. Hickey,” Mr. Goodsir says. “That’s very kind of you. I would like an escape from these quarters, once in a while.”

“Think nothing of it. My pleasure.”

He holds out his hand and Mr. Goodsir takes it. There’s a trace of sweat on that cool palm. Nerves. The clasp goes on longer than it might, longer than it needs to.

He could stay through the winter after all, if his situation’s congenial to it. If the ground freezes, well, there are always other ways of getting his goods, there are mausoleums and fellow resurrection men he could split the shoveling with. If you look hard enough, there's always something. The world’s full of possibilities.


End file.
